Abstract: There is a long-standing tradition in drawing on ecological concepts for the study of digital organization, innovation, and infrastructures. While such concepts had fallen out of favour for a few decades, there has been a resurgence of using ecological metaphors for conceptualizing the radically complex dynamics of digitalization. Particularly, the metaphor of “ecosystem” has, in business-economic terms, inspired research into new business models; and in engineering terms, it has led to important insights into the design and governance of innovation platforms. However, more recently, a third take has emerged that approaches digital ecosystems as literal rather than metaphorical ecological systems. In this presentation, I will discuss the epistemological disposition of this third approach and its implications for the study of the dynamics of digitalization. I will then sketch the contours of digitalization research and practice that is more ecological and, thus, more responsive to a world increasingly marked by runaway precarity.